


A Wizard's Guide to Pocket Dwelling

by hollycomb



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Consent Issues, M/M, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-25
Updated: 2013-08-25
Packaged: 2017-12-24 15:10:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/941426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollycomb/pseuds/hollycomb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight years after Hogwarts, Albus and Scorpius are flatmates in London. Albus is a bit of a disaster. Scorpius is in love with him, but remains an innocent bystander until he has a not so brilliant idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Wizard's Guide to Pocket Dwelling

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Albus/Scorpius Fest back in 2008. It was a gift for leochi, beta read by painless_j.

  
Scorpius wakes up on a dim Monday morning with the distinct feeling that something is out of place. He gets up thinking he might have forgotten to lock up last night, but as soon as he makes his way out into the living area of the flat, the misplaced object that is tugging at his subconscious is apparent. Albus is lying on the floor, mostly in the kitchen, his legs spilled out onto the rug behind the sofa. Scorpius would be afraid that he somehow died in the night if this were at all out of the ordinary.  
  
"Alright," he says, talking to himself, because Albus won't be cognizant for hours. "Let's get you up."  
  
He hooks his arms under Albus' and drags him -- and the rug, which bunches under his feet -- to his bedroom. He prefers not to attempt levitation so early in the morning. It’s not a difficult spell, but guiding Albus carefully through doorways has gone awry in the past, and it’s unnerving, the sight of him moving through the air, limp and unconscious. The way to his bed is obstructed by piles of clothing, books, and an overflowing bin that, for some reason, is sitting in the middle of the room. It meets the corner of the rug as Scorpius pulls it and Albus along. Trash spills everywhere, and Scorpius groans as he hoists Albus into bed.   
  
Putting up with this from any other flatmate would be out of the question, but he's been in love with Albus Potter for almost ten years, and any excuse to put his arms around him is appreciated. The humiliating sadness of this does not escape Scorpius, but it doesn't stop him from enjoying the weight of his friend's body pressed against his, whatever the circumstances.  
  
He showers, dresses, and eats a stale pasty over the sink, wondering what time Albus came home last night. Scorpius was up late, not waiting, but reading a terrible novel recommended by his mother. He fell asleep in bed around two o'clock in the morning, thought maybe Albus was staying the night with Teddy in one of their horrid Muggle motels, but he must not have, unless he and Teddy had another row, which would explain the state of inebriation that led to his passing out on the way to the refrigerator. Scorpius pours a tall glass of pumpkin juice and takes it to Albus' room.  
  
"I'm going to work," he says, setting it on the bedside table. "Are you alright? Do you need a potion?"  
  
"Are you hitting me in the head with a hammer?" Albus mumbles into his pillow.  
  
"No."  
  
"Oh. It felt like you were."   
  
"Trying to tell me to stop talking?"  
  
"Have a good day at work."  
  
"Yeah. I’ll be home at six."  
  
Scorpius works in acquisitions at Flourish & Blotts, and spends most of his days writing letters to old coots who are withholding rare books that the shop hopes to acquire. He is also, sort of, the assistant manager, since the witch who formerly held that position quit two months ago. He tries to stay buried in the shop's basement when he can, ignoring the duties of this second job that he has been asked to take on but is not being paid for.   
  
"Can I get a hand, please?" Fuchsia Burton, the shop's assistant, shouts down the wooden stairs a little before lunch time.  
  
"Nobody down here but us rats," Scorpius calls back.  
  
"Funny. Now get your arse up these stairs before I have to come down there and retrieve it."  
  
Scorpius is technically her superior, but he's also her friend, so he doesn't give her a hard time for the comment, only groans and makes his way upstairs to help her unload a shipment of 500 copies of the latest autobiography from some prat who lived through the war. The books were fascinating at first, particularly to Scorpius, whose father has always refused to speak about that time in history, but as more and more books about the war are published, the writers' involvement in the actual bloody reality of it tends to be increasingly vague.  
  
"What did this bloke do, walk past Hogwarts ten days after the battle?" Scorpius asks, frowning at the cover of _The Best and Worst of Times: My Life Under Voldemort's Rule_. "And how long did Voldemort really _rule_ , anyway, the second time around? Should be more like, 'the couple of months I spent under the threat of Voldemort perhaps ruling.'"  
  
"Say that to anyone my parents' age and they'll accuse you of belittling Potter's accomplishments," Fuchsia says. "You still living with that kid of his?"  
  
"You know I am."  
  
"Has he found a job yet?"  
  
"What do I care? He pays his share of the rent."  
  
"He ought to pay all of it with that fortune he's got. What's he need a flatmate for, anyway?"  
  
"I suspect you're going to tell me."  
  
"To clean up after him! What're you, the maid? His Mum paying you a salary to keep him alive? You look like you haven't been sleeping."  
  
"That's just how I look, it's got nothing to do with rest. I'm a Malfoy, we're born looking wan and exhausted. And anyway, give him a break, he's been through a lot."  
  
"Right, ten years ago." Fuchsia makes a sympathetic face. "Look, we all lost something when Harry Potter died. I know the world's just not the same, for his kids more than anyone, but Albus has got to move on with his life. He can't use that excuse to be a layabout forever. Look at what his brother's done!"  
  
Scorpius gives her a dark look. Albus has told him things about his brother, a high ranking Ministry official, that he’s afraid to repeat. James has been known to send hit wizards after people who defame him in private.   
  
"Just leave it," he mutters.  
  
"Scorpius, darling, I'm thinking mostly of you."  
  
"Thanks, but --"  
  
"Are you seeing anyone?"  
  
"Are you asking me out?"  
  
"Stupid wanker," she mumbles, shaking her head. "Albus is not the only one who needs to get on with his life."  
  
Scorpius continues stacking the books in silence. Harry Potter never got the chance to write one of these memoirs himself, not that he would have. When Scorpius was sixteen, the papers said Potter was murdered by an obsessive "fan" -- Patrick Pinkley, killed mysteriously in transit to Azkaban. Scorpius isn't sure if Albus immediately thought it was a lie, that his father had killed himself, or if it's a theory he developed over time. They were at Hogwarts when it happened, and classes were canceled for a full week, the rooms of the castle filled instead with counseling sessions. The Potter children were of course taken out of school, though they returned a week later. They all reacted to the tragedy in their own way -- James devoted himself entirely to his schoolwork and graduated at the top of the class. Lily did her best to flunk out and now pretends to be a Squib, is currently attending Cambridge and working on her Master's degree in Sociology. Albus slept with the DADA professor.  
  
After work, Scorpius stops by the market in Diagon Alley and picks up some mushrooms and cheese for a pasta sauce. He always makes pasta for Albus on the day of a particularly bad hangover, or blueberry waffles and eggs, if there was also bodily injury involved. They became friends at Hogwarts shortly after Albus' father died, when Albus began hiding in the library in the same nooks that Scorpius was fond of escaping to. Albus was a Quidditch star, and Scorpius had always thought him handsome, had followed the rumors of his romantic exploits with some interest. He had never imagined that he would also be so darkly funny and authentically strange. Falling in love with him was like a blow to the head, a bad idea Scorpius was glad to have, and when Albus finally kissed him it felt like a realized dream, until he caught his breath and considered that Albus kissed a lot of people, always would, the occasional dalliance with his best friend notwithstanding.  
  
He Apparates back to the flat with the groceries. It starts raining as he's cooking, and he tries to keep quiet, because Albus' door is shut and he's probably still sleeping. As much as it disturbs him to find Albus stinking drunk and deposited randomly around the flat like he was this morning, it does allow for these rare quiet evenings with him, when he often puts his head in Scorpius' lap and moans softly, lets him comb his fingers through his hair. Though really, Scorpius can do that whenever he wants. Albus is not known to turn away from a touch, Scorpius just isn't fond of asking the way other people do. He never wants to think that he talked him into it.  
  
Albus finally emerges when the meal is almost ready, doubtless because of the smell of the food. He comes into the kitchen and leans against Scorpius' back, watches him stir.   
  
"I feel like hell," he says, his chin on Scorpius' shoulder. He's slightly shorter, and he tends to stoop.  
  
"Firewhiskey?"  
  
"No, thanks."  
  
"I mean is that what you drank?"  
  
"Oh. I dunno. I started out with ale, honest."  
  
They eat on the sofa, because the kitchen table is covered with mail and adverts, and bills, potentially, that are overdue. Albus is extremely wealthy, but he likes to pretend his father's money doesn't exist. He eats a giant plate of pasta in under two minutes and goes back for another. Scorpius watches him refill his plate, pleased.  
  
"So your stomach's feeling alright?" he calls.  
  
"Didn't realize I was hungry until now." Albus comes back to the sofa with his plate, sits close, beams at him. "You think I'd be dead if it weren't for you?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"I can see the story in the _Daily Prophet_ right? _Albus Severus Potter found dead with his head in the toilet! Representatives for James Potter have no comment!_ I think about it, you know? He'd give some pompous bullshit speech at my funeral. Then I'd pop out as a ghost, you know, and tell his wife about that chicky he keeps at the Spratlin in Knightsbridge."  
  
"Speaking of adultery," Scorpius says, not wanting to encourage Albus' imaginings of his own death. "Were you with the honorable Mr. Lupin last night?"  
  
"No, I haven't heard from Teddy all week. I guess he's jammed at work. I was with this bloke I met in Cambridge last week, when I was visiting Lily -- remember? I told you about him. Anyway, he came by yesterday afternoon, so I went out there and we watched this amateur league Quidditch match. It was hilarious. Someone had cursed the visiting seeker’s broom, he must have fallen off fifteen times."  
  
"How'd you get back here?"  
  
"Dunno. Glad I did, though." He offers the smile he always puts on when he knows he's been an idiot. "Hey, good pasta."  
  
They make a proper night of it, chatting about old classmates, and Albus even washes the dishes. He puts the radio on after dinner to listen to a Quidditch game, and Scorpius makes strong coffee, wants this to last. They sit together listening to the game, Scorpius pretending to get excited when he does. Albus could have played professional Quidditch, everyone said so. He got drafted by the Tornadoes out of school, but they let him go when he skipped five practices in a row.  
  
Scorpius is listening to Albus go on about the Falcons' infamous beaters when there's a knock at the door. He glances at the clock, sees that it's almost midnight.   
  
"Who's there?" he shouts, putting an instinctive hand on Albus' leg. Once, when Scorpius was at work, two men showed up to the flat and put a powerful curse on Albus; he couldn’t speak for a month. He claims they were sent by his brother.  
  
"Al, it's me, open up," Teddy calls through the door, and Albus pops off the couch, offering Scorpius a conciliatory roll of his eyes. Teddy Lupin has a wife and three children in Cardiff. Scorpius isn't sure when his affair with Albus began exactly, but it was at some family party, in some quiet bedroom, when Albus was much too young. It was probably around the time Albus' father died, since Teddy can certainly commiserate with him on that subject.   
  
"It's raining," Teddy grumbles when he walks inside. Something in his tone makes it sound as if he blames Albus for this.   
  
"Did you walk?" Albus asks. Teddy gives him a look.  
  
"Yes, Albus, I walked from Cardiff. For God's sake. Have you got anything to drink? Oh -- hello, Scorpius."  
  
"Ey, Teddy." Scorpius can't bring himself to even be rude. Albus pretends to think Teddy is ridiculous and hypocritical, and loves telling Scorpius so, but he always comes when he calls. Teddy was supposed to be the older brother that James wasn't, but Albus, being Albus, offered sexual favors at some point, and Teddy, being a complete shit, took advantage.  
  
"You look awful," Teddy says, taking Albus' face in his hands. "What happened?"  
  
"Nothing. Just a late night."  
  
Teddy sniffs in disapproval and goes into the kitchen, pokes at the remaining pasta.   
  
“Ah, good,” he says. “I’m starved. Can I have some?”  
  
Scorpius goes into his bedroom, pretending that the question was directed at Albus, who will of course allow it. Less than ten minutes later he hears Albus' bedroom door shut, and rocks back and forth between straining to hear and to not hear. He hates it when they do it here, though he does love that sound he can hear through the walls, the squeaking pant Albus does when he's being fucked hard. Scorpius has slept with him three times in ten years, and only once did he have the nerve to bring that sound out of him.  
  
In the morning, Teddy is gone. Albus' bedroom door is cracked, and when Scorpius passes by on the way to the kitchen, he can see Albus spread across his bed, the blankets half pulled away, shoulder blades raised like wings on his bare back. He wants badly to undress and get in bed with him, keep him warm. Albus would curl around him and sigh and barely know he was there. Scorpius might even be able to sneak away again before he wakes.   
  
But he's going to be late for work, so he only puts his hand on the door frame for a moment, turns, and goes.  
  
He doesn’t see Albus for three days, though he hears him sometimes, or thinks he does, moving about the flat at night. He occasionally mistakes creaking pipes for the sound of Albus’ bedroom door opening, and walks out to find nothing but moonlight in the living room.   
  
When he gets home from work on Friday, Albus is sitting on the couch with a nervous posture that tells Scorpius he’s been waiting for him. He stands up as soon as Scorpius walks in, smiles in a false way and puts his hands on the small of his back. He’s either done something horrible or needs a favor. Scorpius is just glad to see his face, though he is irritated by the sight of him all the same.  
  
“What?” he asks, going into the kitchen. The cabinets are empty, but he should know that; he’s the only one who ever shops.   
  
“Nothing,” Albus says. “How was your day?”  
  
“Fine. The shop is busy and I’m – how was yours?” he asks when he realizes Albus isn’t really listening to the answer, just nodding anxiously.  
  
“Um, I dunno, it was okay. Hey, can you do me a favor tonight?”  
  
Scorpius wishes he could at least pretend to have plans, but Albus knows he doesn’t. He’s always bothering Scorpius about his social life, which is comprised entirely of lunch breaks with Fuchsia and a weekly dinner with his parents. Scorpius has excuses that aren’t exactly lies: he can’t stand the company of most people, he can’t afford to go out all the time. Albus used to ask Scorpius to join him on nights out with his chums, a variety of jobless drug addicts and petty criminals. Nowadays he mostly sees his “friends” one at a time, and Scorpius isn’t asked along.  
  
“What do you need, Albus?”  
  
He immediately regrets his tone. Albus shuffles, looks at the floor, and Scorpius busies himself with a jar of olives, feeling guilty, though he shouldn’t.  
  
“I just, ah. Have to run an errand, and I was wondering if you’d come with me.”  
  
Scorpius opens his mouth to ask him what he’s talking about, then remembers. It’s almost the end of the month.  
  
“You want me to come along for real, or in your pocket?”  
  
“Pocket.”  
  
This is a joke between them, an offhand comment by Albus that became very literal by some combination of coincidence and subconscious effort. Just a few months before they left school, they were sitting on the front steps of the castle, watching students come and go in pairs in groups, many of the girls flashing looks at Albus. He was of course the most sought after boy at Hogwarts – rich, handsome, sporty, and a well established disaster. When Matilda Robard grinned at him with convincing sweetness as she passed, Scorpius scoffed and snapped the point of his quill against the textbook he’d been scribbling in.  
  
“What?” Albus said, grinning, because he already knew.  
  
“Nothing,” Scorpius muttered. He wouldn’t look at Albus; he was being smug. “I just hate that girl.”  
  
Albus laughed, slapped his knees, then leaned against Scorpius’ back, hugging his shoulders.   
  
“Malfoy,” he said. “You kill me.”  
  
“Great.”  
  
“No, really. I wish I could, like. Carry you around in my pocket. I don’t know.”  
  
Scorpius’ face still gets red when he thinks about it, and whenever Albus asks him to turn pocket-sized. He was the top Transfiguration student in his class, and became obsessed with achieving Animagus status after graduation. It only took him six months of devoted study and practice to reveal his animal form: a bright green lizard, seven inches long with small, black eyes. Being an Animagus is one of his proudest accomplishments, and Albus was the first one he told. He was in his pocket for hours that day, Albus shaking with laughter until he gave Scorpius a headache. He had to turn human to take a pain numbing potion.  
  
“Right now?” Scorpius asks.   
  
“Um, yeah. Now would be good.”  
  
“You’ve got plans later?”  
  
Albus looks wounded by the question, which means yes, he does. Scorpius turns into a lizard without waiting for a response. He looks up at Albus from the floor, wonders which pocket he will carry him in. Being close to his lap has a certain appeal, but he prefers the shirt pocket, the gentle thunder of his heartbeat.   
  
“Here you go,” Albus says, kneeling down and offering his hand. Scorpius crawls onto it, has always liked the way his scaly lizard feet make Albus’ palm feel so soft in comparison. Albus cups him carefully, brings him to his chest and lets him climb into his shirt pocket, holding a hand beneath it in case he slips.  
  
“Comfy?” Albus asks, slipping on his robes to hide the bulge at his breast. Scorpius of course can’t respond, but yes, he is.  
  
He almost dozes on the trip, listening to Albus hum to himself. He takes the tube, not wanting to invite the complications that magical transportation might cause Scorpius in his Animagus form. Scorpius clings to the inside of his pocket with his short claws, and Albus pulls his robes back a little so he can breathe properly.   
  
“What’s that you’ve got on?” a Muggle woman asks Albus.  
  
“It’s a costume,” Albus says.   
  
“For what?”  
  
“A play I’m in.”  
  
Scorpius groans, which is soundless in lizard form, only causing his throat to bubble out slightly. Albus has never been shy around Muggles, and Scorpius is always expecting him to someday just tell one of them the truth.  
  
“What sort of play?” the woman asks.  
  
“Shakespeare.”  
  
“Ah! Which of his?”  
  
“Uh—“  
  
Scorpius would burst into laughter if he could, as Albus racks his mind for the title of a Shakespeare play.   
  
“King Lear,” he finally blurts.  
  
“Oh, fantastic! Who’re you playing?”  
  
“Um, the king.”  
  
“Aren’t you a little young?”  
  
“I wear a false beard.”  
  
“Uh-huh. Interesting.”  
  
Thankfully, Albus reaches his stop before the woman can ask him where he’s performing this interesting adaptation of Lear. Albus’ heart beats faster as he walks, pulsing under the fabric Scorpius is huddled inside. It’s enough to make him dizzy by the time Albus is knocking at the door.   
  
“Hello, Mum,” he says when she pulls it open. Scorpius wants to be human very badly when he hears Albus’ half-broken, pretend happy voice, and he’s afraid for a moment that he’ll change unconsciously. Albus can’t have a real chaperone for these visits, it would only make things worse, but Scorpius wishes sometimes that he could attend under an invisibility cloak, so he could squeeze Albus’ shaking hand at moments. But James inherited the Invisibility Cloak, and it’s been quite instrumental to his political career. Scorpius shifts inside Albus’ pocket to remind him that he’s there.   
  
“Darling!” Ginny says, drawing him inside. “Are you alright? You look a bit – come in, come in!”  
  
“I’m fine,” Albus says. She knows he’s not, and he knows that she knows. Scorpius feels grateful for his only moderately dysfunctional relationship with his father whenever he’s around these two.  
  
“How have you been?” she asks when they’re in the kitchen. She’s putting some kind of snack together for him. Scorpius is starving, would happily eat ten crickets, but he won’t have to be a lizard for long. These visits are always brief.  
  
“I’ve been alright,” Albus says. Same questions, same answers, never anything of substance said. Ginny Weasley withstood her husband’s death better than most people expected, and she’s not the problem. Albus is not the problem, either – he tries, has long talks with his sister about what went wrong between he and his mother. The ‘when’ is pretty firmly established. Albus never should have shared his suspicion about his father’s death with his family, and never would have, but he was drunk. James hasn’t spoken to him since.   
  
“Are you still rooming with Scorpius Malfoy?” Ginny asks.   
  
“Yep, he’s still—he’s—there.”  
  
“Good, good. Such a nice boy. Amazing, considering his father.”  
  
“That’s what everyone says.”  
  
“Dating anyone?”   
  
“Scorpius?”  
  
“No, you, silly!”  
  
“Oh, uh, no. Not really.”  
  
“You should get out more. Are you getting out?”  
  
“Yeah, Mum.”   
  
If she knew about Teddy, the little that is left between them would be lost. Albus hasn’t even confided in Lily. His heart is beating fast enough to make Scorpius nauseous.   
  
“So, uh,” Albus says. He’s desperate to get away; Scorpius can feel it as if he’s a part of Albus’ body, a little organ curled just under his skin, keeping him breathing. “I guess I’ll need my cheque.”  
  
“Oh, of course!” Ginny does her best to sweep every hint of judgment from her voice. “I’ve got it for you – here.”  
  
“Great, thanks. Listen, I—“  
  
“Don’t you want to eat something?”   
  
He’s already backing toward the door.  
  
“I’ve actually got to go – I’m actually meeting a – some friends, back in town, shortly, and –“  
  
“Okay, sweetheart. Okay.”  
  
Albus stops a few blocks from her house and takes Scorpius out of his pocket. He’s standing between two of the posh houses in Ginny’s neighborhood.   
  
“I need you to be a person now.” Albus sets him in the grass, and the itchy greenness of it makes Scorpius want to hunt bugs, which is disturbing enough to get him back to human form without much effort.  
  
“Alright,” Scorpius says, glad as ever to be rid of the anxiety of being small. He reaches out and lets Albus be the small one now, holds him until a fluffy white dog comes barking out from around the side of one of the houses. They Apparate back to the flat without discussion.   
  
“It’s just,” Albus says, already in the middle of a conversation, or an attempt at one, while Scorpius regains his bearings following the transformation and Apparition. “It’s just—“  
  
“I know.”  
  
“I need a drink.” He heads for the kitchen, gets a bottle down from one of the high cabinets. “You want one?”  
  
“Sure.”  
  
“Thanks for that, anyway.” He’s got his back to Scorpius, pouring two glasses of something brown – could be firewhiskey, bourbon, brandy – Scorpius can never tell, finds them all equally hard to keep down.  
  
“You know I’m glad to do it.”  
  
“Well. Thanks.” He comes back into the living room, hands Scorpius a glass. “Hey,” he says, raising his. “Here’s to paying the rent, right?”  
  
“Right.” Scorpius is one of the few people – maybe the only person – who understands that, in his way, Albus works harder for his half of the rent than he does.  
  
They stand in the middle of the room with their drinks, Scorpius trying to keep up with Albus, on the verge of a coughing fit. Albus is quiet, staring into space.   
  
“I thought you were going out?” Scorpius says. He doesn’t know why he reminded him, doesn’t know why he does any of this, except for the obvious reason, which he has accepted with laconic resignation. He would do anything.  
  
“Yeah.” Albus sighs hugely. “I’m supposed to meet this – whatever. This guy.”  
  
“Wizard or Muggle?” Albus sleeps with both.  
  
“Wizard.”  
  
“Ah. Anybody I know?”  
  
Albus shakes his head, looks at the floor. There was a time when he told Scorpius every detail of his conquests. He’s not sure why that’s stopped.  
  
“Can I come?” Scorpius asks. He’s a cheap drunk, reeling already, compounded by the fact that he hasn’t eaten since noon.   
  
“If you’re trying to ask if I’m going out to get fucked, yeah, I am.” Albus says, flashing a furious look.  
  
“No shit.” Scorpius laughs down at his empty glass. “I wasn’t asking that. I really want to come.”  
  
“Um. What?”  
  
“Remember Roger Krump?”  
  
Albus gives him a long look, stuck between a grin and a grimace.   
  
“Are you fucking serious?”  
  
When they were in their seventh year at Hogwarts, Albus had a fling with Roger Krump, the most reserved, stuck up, least gay bloke in their year. Scorpius pretended not to believe him; he already knew that Albus could have anyone and liked a challenge. He was mostly just trying to irritate Albus, who was so determined to convince him that he offered him a peep show. It was in the prefect’s bathroom, Scorpius hidden behind a drapery, three o’clock in the morning. Scorpius came twice, his hand barely needing to move on his cock as he watched Roger driving into Albus, saying, _you like that, don’t you, you fucking slag_. He hated Roger, and himself – Albus, too – when it was done. But nothing gets him off so easily as just the memory of that night – even sex with Albus wasn’t the same. There was too much to think about.   
  
“I’m not joking. If it wouldn’t bother you. I think it’d be a laugh.”  
  
“A laugh.”   
  
Scorpius is going to backtrack, pretend it was a joke – the look on Albus’ face – but then:   
  
“Yeah, sure. Okay.”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah, you creepy fuck.” Albus grins hard. “Sure. I don’t mind an audience.”  
  
Scorpius changes back to his Animagus form before either of them can think better of it. Albus offers his hand, and puts him in his trouser pocket this time. He has another drink before walking out the door.   
  
There are street sounds – cars and people passing by, laughing. Scorpius doesn’t know where Albus is going, and he’s bothered and excited by this. His heart is thudding inside his tiny body, and he wonders what this will be like in his Animagus form. He knows he still wants Albus, no matter what form he’s taken – just being this close to the heat of his crotch makes him groggy with desire he can’t do anything with, in this body. In any body.  
  
He hears loud music, and Albus is coming closer to it. He stops for a moment, takes a breath that shifts his whole body.  
  
“Don’t do anything crazy,” he says. Scorpius wants to shout up at him: I’m a fucking lizard, what the hell am I going to do? He realizes as Albus walks ahead that he might have been talking to himself.  
  
The music inside the building that Albus enters is deafening, but Scorpius feels him clap someone’s hand.   
  
“Hey,” he shouts over the music. “What’re you drinking?”  
  
“Golden Glass,” the man says. “Want some?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Scorpius regrets coming along already. Golden Glass is a near-deadly combination of euphoria elixir and firewhiskey. Albus will get pissed and forget Scorpius has come along. He’ll be lucky not to get stepped on once his trousers are on the floor of this bloke’s flat.  
  
“I told me mum I’d met Harry Potter’s son,” the man says. He pulls Albus close, nearly smothering Scorpius for a moment, but Albus leans away, gives him room to breathe.   
  
“Was she impressed?”  
  
“Course. If only she knew what I’m about to do to him.”  
  
Scorpius wants to vomit, settles for sticking his tongue out. Who the hell mentions their _mum_ in a come on?  
  
“What’s that exactly?” Albus asks. Scorpius can’t tell if he’s really buying into this or just trying to.   
  
“Fuck him till he screams.”  
  
That’s original, Scorpius wants to say. He hears Albus’ empty glass smack against the bar.  
  
“Let’s get out of here,” he says.  
  
“Hot for it, are ya?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
They walk for awhile, and the sound of Friday night in London drains away when they enter a building and start clambering up stairs. Neither of them are talking. This is not how Scorpius imagined it, Albus jolly and loose-lipped and carefree, but maybe he’s playing it down since he’s got a witness.   
  
“Great place,” Albus says when they get inside, and Scorpius has the feeling he’s talking to him, describing the scene he can’t see. “What’ve you got in that aquarium?”  
  
“It’s a kappa. Mean son of a bitch. Almost bit my hand off, once.”  
  
“Nice.”  
  
“Yeah, I won him in a game of gobstones. C’mere.”  
  
The man starts in on Albus’ belt, and Scorpius is terrified for a moment, certain he’ll be discovered. But Albus gets his trousers off quickly and steps away from them, kissing the man and pulling him closer to the bed, leaving the coast clear for Scorpius. He peeks out of the pocket to see the man tearing Albus’ shirt over his head. He’s better looking than Scorpius expected, freakishly tall, six and a half feet at least, with longish black hair and good cheekbones. He grins at Albus in a way that makes Scorpius want to transform, grab him and run, but he should have expected that. He creeps across the floor when they fall onto the bed, climbs up onto the dresser to get a better view.  
  
“Lie on your stomach,” the man says, and Albus does as he asks. Scorpius hides behind a pile of crumpled Chocolate Frog wrappers on the dresser, gets a clear view from around the side of it.  
  
“Arse in the air,” the man instructs, and Albus gets up on his knees, his face still pressed against the mattress. Cold-blooded in lizard form, Scorpius can only feel the flush in his mind, but it still hits him hard, Albus on his knees and dazed, legs spread.   
  
“You’re shaking,” the man says when he kneels behind him. He grins. “Nervous about having eight inches of cock shoved up your arse?”  
  
Albus scoffs, then wisely swallows whatever comment he might have made about having had bigger. The man smacks his arse anyway, and Albus gulps audibly, turns his face against the mattress. The man’s wand is on the table, easily within reach. Albus’ in on the floor, in the pocket of his discarded robes.   
  
“That’s a sweet, soft little arse you’ve got there, Potter,” the man says, stroking it. “Almost makes you seem innocent.”  
  
“I could be innocent, if you want,” Albus says. “I could beg you not to.”   
  
“I’m not into that play-acting shite,” the man says. He bends down and circles Albus with his tongue, makes him gasp and strain backward, pull the sheets into his fists. The man spreads him wide, holds him in place.  
  
“You like that?”  
  
“Yeah, yeah – just, deeper with the – yeah.”  
  
The man obliges, plunges his tongue into Albus, makes him whine and hitch backward. Scorpius can see the sweat shining on his back already, and he doesn’t know how the man can’t just sit back and stare in wonder, at how pretty his full-body blush is, how awful-beautiful he is when he’s pathetic and wanting like this. It’s hard to even look at straight on, but Scorpius doesn’t blink.  
  
“Get over here and suck some cock, Potter.”  
  
They all – every single one of them – must get off on calling him Potter. Albus scrambles up and turns, takes the man in his mouth with an eagerness Scorpius remembers. The last time they were together, drunk on the sofa at the flat, Albus went to his knees and pushed Scorpius’ legs apart like he’d been waiting all his life for the privilege. He was good, too. Not that Scorpius would know, but.  
  
“That’s right,” the man says, smiling slightly, his eyes shut and his head tipped back, still on his knees. He’s attractive, lanky and pale, and Scorpius almost wishes he wasn’t, doesn’t want to be distracted. He looks back to Albus, who is on his knees and supported by one hand, the other cupping the man’s balls, which are unnervingly hairless. There is a spell for that, Albus has mentioned it, laughing and saying he’d never point his wand at his dick for vanity or any other reason. Scorpius suddenly feels a pang like a stone dropping through him, as if Albus isn’t here at all, as if he must get to him at once.  
  
“Alright,” the man says, sucking in his breath, and Albus understands the cue, sits back and looks up at him. Scorpius hates both of them for the expression on Albus’ face – eyes shadowed, mouth open, waiting for instruction.  
  
“Fucking pretty boy,” the man remarks, taking Albus’ chin in his hand. He gets distracted, the hardness in his face leaving him, and leans in to kiss Albus, who only puts up with this for a moment before flipping over.   
  
“I want to fuck you on your back first,” the man says, but Albus puts his palms against the headboard.   
  
“I like it better this way,” he says. The man doesn’t argue, his cock slick and almost purple with the pressure of his hardness – he won’t last long. The swallowed-up way Albus moans when he slides into him makes Scorpius’ consciousness flicker so wildly that he’s afraid he’ll tumble off the dresser, human again.  
  
“Yeah,” the man says, long and slow, enjoying the word as it leaves him. He begins moving carefully, trying to make himself last. Scorpius is surprised he hasn’t used a potion to increase his longevity, but maybe he was too drunk to plan ahead and buy some. He’s almost sorry that this is going to be over soon, more because he’ll have to face Albus than anything else.   
  
“S’that good, Potter?” the man asks, smiling, proud of himself. Scorpius wonders how many times Albus has heard this, all of this.  
  
“Yeah,” he says, squeezing the headboard. “Harder, though.”  
  
“Bossy bastard,” the man says, slapping his arse. He moves even more gingerly. “I’ll go as slow as I want. Yeah – just like that.”   
  
He might as well be wanking off. Albus is attending to his own cock, stroking it with a frantic, adolescent rhythm. If this man was any good at all he’d grab his hand, make him wait. Instead he pulls almost all the way out, moans when he slides back in, still slow.  
  
“You like being fucked hard, don’t ya?” he asks, teasing.  
  
“Yeah – please –“  
  
“Please? You gonna beg me?”  
  
“Please, please, ah – God – please –“  
  
“What do you want?” the man asks. He’s stopped moving completely now. Albus is fidgeting, his toes flexing on the sheets.  
  
“Fuck me, please, hard –“  
  
“You want this cock bad, Mr. Potter?”  
  
The guy might as well have called him Harry.  
  
“Yeah, bad, so bad –“  
  
“How bad?”  
  
He just _told_ you, Scorpius wants to shout. If he were capable of it, he’d be sweating all over the dresser, sitting in a puddle. Albus is sweating terribly – the man, too, both of them damp and breathless – and the man can’t wait any longer, either, so he gives Albus a paltry couple of hard thrusts before he comes, a weird sort of yelp ripping out of him. Albus jerks himself off as the man stumbles across the room to get his wand and clean himself up. He rolls over and looks up at the ceiling when he’s done, eyes vacant, chest heaving, then he scans the room, looking for Scorpius, who ducks behind the wrappers before he remembers that Albus brought him here knowingly.   
  
“You want a drink?” the man asks, turning to stare at Albus as if he’s a country he just conquered. Albus is sticky and spent, and Scorpius hopes he’ll say no to the drink. He wants to take him home, clean him up, sing him to sleep, watch him come out of this like a fever.   
  
“Have you got a beer or something?” Albus asks, sitting up on his elbows. “I’m already kind of fucked up.”  
  
“No kidding,” the man says, walking out of the room with a laugh. “I’ll get you a beer, Mr. Potter.”  
  
Scorpius moves on the dresser when he’s gone, and Albus’ eyes dart to him. He stares at him for a few deep breaths, then stands, hurries into his shorts and trousers, scoops Scorpius hastily into his pocket.   
  
“Getting dressed already?” the man says when he comes back with a beer. Albus takes it, drinks half in one swallow. “What about round two?”  
  
“I’ve got to get up early tomorrow,” Albus says. He sets his beer on the dresser and buckles his belt. Scorpius slips down further into his pocket, has seen enough.  
  
“That was fun,” the man says, kissing him somewhere, not his mouth, because Scorpius can hear him chugging the rest of the beer. “Maybe again, sometime?”  
  
“Maybe.” Albus sounds disgusted with him already. So why, why, why the rest of it? But Scorpius knows, he does – he’s disgusted with himself, but he’d do this again, is fully planning on making it a regular hobby.  
  
There are muttered goodnights, and the air gets cooler, the night louder. Albus walks quickly down the street, and Scorpius waits for him to stop in an alleyway and let him out, let him change, but he just keeps walking. He doesn’t take him from his pocket until he reaches the flat, and he sets him on the floor, walks away. Scorpius transforms, the sinking feeling that something has gone badly wrong growing exponentially when he’s human again.   
  
Albus is in the bathroom. Scorpius hears the sink running, considers again his thoughts about cleaning Albus up. He could walk in coolly, turn on the shower, use his wand to get his clothes off quickly. Instead he goes into the kitchen, checks the cabinets. Still empty.  
  
“I’m never doing that again,” Albus says from across the room, and Scorpius turns, sees him leaning against the wall, half-drunk, shadows like bruises on his face. He has a flicker of stupid hope, thinking for a moment that Albus means he’ll never turn onto his stomach for a man like that again, but then he realizes what he’s talking about.  
  
“Okay,” Scorpius says, embarrassed. “But don’t – you can’t get cross with me. You agreed. I didn’t have a wand to your back.”  
  
“Just –” Albus shuts his eyes, holds up a hand. He turns toward his bedroom, stops in the doorway and holds onto the wall, seems unsteady on his feet. “Fuck,” he says, frozen in place, as if he’s just realized that he forgot his wallet.   
  
“Albus—”  
  
“I don’t know why I let you see that,” he says, and then he’s in his room, the door shut hard behind him.   
  
“You’ve done it before,” Scorpius says to no one. But this doesn’t feel anything like it did at Hogwarts. Albus didn’t grin and wink at Scorpius when his partner had his back turned. He didn’t grin at anybody.

*

  
  
Scorpius goes to bed, can’t sleep, and doesn’t feel right wanking off. Somehow he feels now as if he’s the one who’s being watched, and perhaps it’s the sexual frustration, but as the night wears on he gets more and more upset with Albus for reacting the way he did. If he didn’t want him there, why did he agree to it? If he changed his mind once he arrived, why not duck out on the random shag? Surely he could have arranged for another in a pinch, without Scorpius in tow. And what the hell does he care if Scorpius gets off on this? He never asks Albus for anything. He’s done everything for him for the last ten years – mops his forehead when he’s done puking after a night of self-destruction, makes sure he eats regular meals, rarely utters a derogatory comment about the Teddy situation. What is he even doing here if he can’t get something out of it?   
  
The next morning, Scorpius is up early, and he makes toast for himself, regards Albus’ door nervously. When he finally hears shuffling inside it’s nearly midday, and he’s spent the whole morning on the couch with the Daily Prophet, read it from front to back. Albus emerges fully dressed, which is unusual on a Saturday morning, and walks to the kitchen without looking at Scorpius.   
  
“Your brother’s in the paper today,” he calls while Albus stares in at the empty fridge.  
  
“He usually is.”  
  
“Do you want me to read it to you?” Scorpius asks, flipping back to the article about James attending a conference in Suffolk. Apparently he gave a particularly inspirational speech.   
  
“I try not to think about him at all, thanks,” Albus says. He palms water from the tap, slurps it with his face over the sink.   
  
“Got any plans today?” Scorpius asks.  
  
“Yeah, actually.” Albus finally looks at him. “That alright with you?”  
  
“Look, mate—“  
  
“I’ve got to go,” Albus says, hurrying for the door. “I’m already late.”  
  
Furious at him for thinking he has the right to act this way, Scorpius slams down the newspaper. He paces for a moment, then follows him out, not sure what he’ll say if he catches him. He hears the door slamming down in the lobby, and jogs down the stairs to the first floor, reaches the front door of the building in time to see Albus crossing the street.   
  
Scorpius follows him into town, waiting for him to turn into Diagon Alley as they approach the Leaky Cauldron, but he passes by, heading for the river. He crosses the bridge toward the Ferris wheel, Muggle tourists lined up with their children. Scorpius hangs back, careful, considering a transformation, but that might be deadly here by the river, where sea birds are hovering. He's not sure that they eat lizards, but there's always the risk of hawks, and it's crowded enough on a Saturday afternoon that he's likely to get stepped on.   
  
Albus buys an ice cream bar and sits on a bench near the river, watching Muggle families take pictures, posing with Big Ben in the background. Scorpius waits for a black market potions dealer or a date to arrive, but Albus gets up without meeting anyone, walks aimlessly down the pier. Scorpius wonders what he was on about being late for, then realizes it was a lie, that he just wanted to get away from him. This realization, and the thinning crowd as Albus gets further from the London Eye, almost makes Scorpius turn around, dejected and ashamed, but when Albus approaches a group of Muggle teenagers who are skateboarding under an overpass, Scorpius ducks behind a bin, watches.  
  
The makeshift skateboarding arena is covered in graffiti, and there are at least ten Muggles traversing it, wheels rolling smoothly until the tip of a board meets concrete with a violent slap. Albus has his hands in his pockets, and he's staring. Scorpius waits for him to make eye contact with one of them, cruise him, slink off to a dark corner and undo his trousers. He only stands there, like a boy who doesn't know how to make friends.  
  
He eats lunch at a pub near the Waterloo station. Scorpius watches from outside; the pub has giant windows that offer a semi-obscured view of the river, and Westminster in the distance. Albus eats a sandwich, drinks two pints, flirts with the waitress. Scorpius begins to feel overwhelmingly guilty, and then just cheated. His own stomach rumbles. They should be spending this day together. He had assumed that every time Albus left the flat, it was for the company of someone who could give him something Scorpius couldn't. He's not surprised that Albus wants to spend his days among Muggles, who won't recognize him and start weeping about his father's death, but he's never known Albus to want to be alone with his thoughts. It's actually quite a dangerous pastime for him.  
  
After eating, Albus takes the tube back toward Leicester. Scorpius has to transform in order to sneak through the turnstile; he doesn't have any Muggle money for a ticket. He's a human again on the train, lurking in the back. There's not much of a threat of Albus seeing him; the train is packed, and Albus is dozing against the window. He's more worried that someone might have seen him transform, but no one looks at him twice.   
  
Albus gets off at King's Cross and shuffles through the crowd like a sleepwalker, ignoring shouted insults when he bumps the shoulders of businessmen. He stops at a coffee stand and smiles for the first time all day. A blond boy wearing a green apron pokes his head out of the stand's window, smiles back.   
  
Scorpius can't hear their conversation, but he doesn't need to. The boy puts his elbows on the counter, and Albus grips the rim with both hands, laughs at something he’s saying. Scorpius draws dangerously close, the warning pound of his heartbeat lost in the noise of the crowd. He pretends to read a magazine at a stand beside the one where Albus has stopped.  
  
"Can you sneak me something?" Albus is asking. Scorpius hasn't heard his voice like this in awhile, maybe ever. He's talking sweet to this boy, who has skinny arms and a blush like a guilty plea. It doesn't sound fake, but Albus is good at this sort of thing.  
  
"What do you want?" the boy asks. "Toffee? A macchiato?"  
  
"What in the hell is a macchiato?"   
  
"I'll make you one. You'll like it."  
  
Albus grins, watches him work. A line forms behind him. Scorpius knows he should leave. When he does, he's following Albus and the boy, who is balling up his apron in his hands.  
  
They walk out of the station and on to the British Library. Albus sits on a ledge in the courtyard and drinks his macchiato, the boy beside him, laughing too much. He can't be more than eighteen, his accent is bad, and he's definitely a Muggle. Scorpius squats behind the base of a statute in the courtyard, some rational part of him giving up, ready to leave. He was starting to get his hopes up, watching Albus dragging himself around the city, lonely among the Muggles. When he and the boy walk away from the courtyard, shoulders close, he knows he shouldn't follow, but he transforms without really thinking about it, and moves quickly along the sidewalk as a lizard, treading in their footsteps.  
  
The boy lives in an building much dingier than the one Albus brought Scorpius to the night before. Dogs bark from behind doors as Scorpius scurries up a dark flight of stairs to the flat he saw them disappear into. He prays for a crack at the bottom of the door that won't pinch him too terribly, and is happy to find that the fattest rat in London could easily sneak underneath.   
  
Inside the flat, Albus is already kissing the boy, who is breathing hard, shaking like he's the one who just chugged a coffee. Scorpius hides behind a cardboard box full of compact discs, peeks around the side.  
  
"My flatmate will be back in an hour," the boy says as Albus unbuttons his shirt with careful calculation.   
  
"Want to wait for him?" Albus asks.   
  
"Wait for him? I --" The boy's eyes go wide when he realizes what Albus is proposing. Albus laughs, tugs him close.  
  
"I'm joking," he says. "You're the only one I want," he adds in a whisper, and Scorpius knows now. This is all fake.  
  
"Colin," the boy breathes when Albus kisses his neck, and Scorpius waits for Albus to take offense, then realizes that’s what he’s told the boy his name is. Maybe it's his regular name among the Muggles. They're leaning against the back of a ratty sofa, the boy's arse perched precariously atop the cushions. When Albus slides a hand between the boy’s legs he gasps, flinches and goes sailing back onto the couch. Albus laughs, leans over and looks down at him.  
  
"I've never done this," the boys says.   
  
"You don't say." Albus walks around to the front of the couch, lies on top of him. Scorpius can only see their feet hanging over the edge, and he scurries across the floor to get a better look, hoping the boy doesn't own a cat.   
  
Albus already has his hand down the boy's khaki work trousers, and the boy is squeezing Albus’ elbow like he can't decide if he wants to throw him off or not. Kiss his face, Scorpius wants to say. The boy is gorgeous, stupid, frightened. He reminds him of someone.  
  
"I'm fucking wired," Albus says, laughing against the boy's neck. "What did you put in that coffee?"  
  
"Colin," the boy says, and Albus forgets to look up for a moment. Must not be a regular name. "I want to --" the boy stutters. He pushes Albus back slightly, scoots between his legs. "You can tell me if it's not good," he says, keeping the words barely audible. He pops the button on Albus' trousers, cups him with hot-faced curiosity before unzipping. Albus puts one hand on the boy's shoulder, one on the back of his head.  
  
"Just don't bite me," he says. He's smirking, but he might be serious.  
  
"I'd never!"  
  
"I know," Albus says, stroking his hair.   
  
Scorpius batters away his own jealousy by wishing that Teddy could see this. Albus makes encouraging sounds while the boy sucks him off, pulls a hand through his hair. He never shuts his eyes, never stops watching.   
  
"Is that good?" the boy exhales, looking up at him. Albus nods languidly, puts a finger in the boy's mouth, lets him suck that as well.  
  
He uses Mister Malkin's Long Lasting Lubricant on the boy, and Scorpius grins at the familiar slender bottle -- he's ridden in many a pocket with it -- and at Albus' general stupidity, using a potion on a Muggle, not that this boy could tell the ceiling from the floor once Albus has slid into him. He's sputtering, telling Albus he's alright, clinging hard.  
  
"Say you're mine," Albus manages before he comes. His teeth are clenched in an effort not to pound this virgin arsehole, the boy’s trembling thighs like his conscience wrapped around him.  
  
"I'm yours, I'm yours." The boy kisses him between dry sobs. He doesn't mean it. Albus looks exhausted when he finishes, from something more profound than the exertion. He puts his head on the boy's chest, pulls out of him. The boy sighs in relief, wipes sweat from his upper lip.   
  
"Jesus," he says to the ceiling.   
  
"Why are you people always asking for him after sex?" Albus mutters.   
  
"You people? What people?"  
  
"Nothing." Albus gets up, tucks in. "You alright?"  
  
"Yeah," he says. "You'd better go. My flatmate--"  
  
"Yeah, right, your flatmate," Albus says. Scorpius scurries under the sofa, is sure for a moment that Albus knows he's here. The scene under the sofa is apocalyptic -- dust bunnies dwarf him, roaches lie dead on their backs.  
  
"Thanks," the boy says. "That was intense." He laughs stupidly, the way he did in the courtyard, hapless in a disaffected way.  
  
"Yeah. Thanks for the coffee."  
  
Albus is out the door, and Scorpius hears the boy go into the kitchen, pop open a beer. Maybe he's not a boy, he could be in his twenties. Scorpius gets the feeling he was picking Albus' pockets somehow, but he doesn't do anything incriminating when Albus is gone, just puts the TV on as Scorpius races across the floor and out into the hall. He transforms, a baby crying somewhere on the next floor. Human again, he feels claustrophobic, and Apparates without checking to see if anyone might catch him disappearing in midair.  
  
He hopes, idiotically, to find Albus back at the flat. It's empty. Scorpius is starving, should go downstairs to the shop run by a witch from Bolivia who makes insanely good meatballs, but the joy of again having a cock to stroke after a whole afternoon in his Animagus form sends him straight to his bedroom instead. He leaves the door open, like a challenge, or a death wish.  
  
In his usual position -- on his back, legs tipped apart, knees slightly elevated, trousers still around his ankles because he likes the feeling of being cuffed -- he realizes this isn't going to work. He's thinking too much, like he did all three times with Albus. He can't lose himself properly, too much has happened. Part of his mind is still with Albus, wandering the city, maybe shagging someone else by now, another clean-faced Muggle or a dark older chap who will say "Potter" like a curse while Albus draws his tongue up the length of his cock.  
  
The solution dawns on him only because of the open door. Across the living room, he sees that the door to Albus' room is open as well.  
  
Inside Albus’ room, he shuts the door. Just being there fluffs his senses, wakes him up and sinks him deeper at the same time. He falls onto the bed, which is a mess. Albus never makes it, and it’s still warm, only because it's summer. On his knees, Scorpius buries his face in Albus' pillow, breathes deep and whines, starts to get off on being pathetic. What else does he have left? He imagines Albus coming home suddenly, Apparating to the middle of the room and seeing him as he’s seen Albus, arse in the air, legs apart, his cock hanging heavy between them. Albus would pack his things immediately, but Scorpius pretends otherwise, reaches back to tickle himself between his legs, imagines Albus mounting him without preamble, shoving in hard. He's suffocating in the smell of him, the warm scent of his shoulders and the acidic lace of sex that covers these unwashed sheets.  
  
"Fuck me," he allows himself to say, the words muffled in Albus' pillow. "Oh, God, Albus. _Hard_."  
  
Even this doesn't quite do it, so instead he pictures Teddy and Albus in this bed, Albus trying not to scream because his flatmate is sleeping, Teddy looking smug and moaning low in the back of his throat, one hand on Albus' shoulder, pulling him back because he can't ever get deep enough into this hot, tight, willing little slag. He comes hard all over Albus' sheets, watches it pool on the dank blue material like a confession.  
  
Panic sets in as soon as he's done, and he's sure he can hear someone out in the kitchen for a moment. He cleans up after himself, stuffs his wand back in his trouser pocket and walks awkwardly to the door. Peeking out, he sees that the flat is still empty. He gets a hold of himself, breathes deep, leans in the doorway. He turns back for one last look at Albus' room, makes sure the bed still looks authentically rumpled. He imagines Albus spying on him, and hates himself for doing it to Albus earlier, hates more than he's lost him, that Albus is off somewhere doing things he'll never find out about.   
  
He's supposed to go to his parents' house for dinner, but he cancels, tells them he's ill. His mother will of course know he's lying, but he can't face them and their quiet gloom tonight. He's got problems of his own. He drinks some of Albus' firewhiskey, imagines he can taste him in it when its burn tingles on his lips. It's been three years since they even kissed. They've fallen into a routine. They have fallen, finally, apart.   
  
He spends the night on the sofa, wakes up with a headache and heads for the bathroom to find a potion. He hears the pop of someone Apparating outside the door, and recognizes it somehow as the sound Albus makes when he appears. He's memorized it without meaning to. Frantic, as if he'll be caught doing what he did yesterday, the ghost of the thing still on his face, he runs into the bathroom, hides behind the shower curtain.   
  
"Scorpius?" Albus calls as he walks toward his room. He feels ridiculous, hiding for no reason, but he can't come out now. He hears drawers being pulled open, a zipper on something heavy. A suitcase? He transforms almost unconsciously, and scales the wall of the bathtub in a desperate scramble, his lizard's nails clicking against the porcelain.   
  
He moves cautiously toward Albus' bedroom, and finds him throwing clothes into an overnight bag. Shame and terror rip through him: he must have seen. He must somehow know. He's leaving, for good.   
  
Albus doesn't look upset, just a bit somber and tired, and he sighs when he stands up. He goes to his bedside table and opens a drawer, fishes out an economy sized tub of some special lube from France that Teddy uses. He's going somewhere with Teddy -- it's Teddy who's taking him away.  
  
When Albus goes to the bathroom to get his toothbrush, Scorpius flies into his overnight bag like it's a heavy door closing rapidly on his life. He squirms down to the bottom, out of his mind with anger at Teddy, Albus, himself. He considers the fact that this is none of his business, thinks about climbing out. It doesn't occur to him that he might not be able to breathe in here until Albus zips the bag shut and hoists it onto his shoulder.  
  
As Albus jogs out of the flat and down to the street with the bag, Scorpius crawls through the tangle of clothes and toiletries, feeling truly like an animal, losing himself to the singular goal of finding a source of air. Albus has left one corner of the bag just slightly unzipped, and he situates himself beneath it, his animal body pulsing with the reality of his entrapment, his human mind still trying to work out the implications of what he’s done.   
  
“That was quick,” Teddy says. They’re in his car, a convertible, the top down. Scorpius can’t see much through the tiny slit in the bag, but he knows this car, and knows that Teddy doesn’t travel by Floo or Apparition when he’s seeing Albus. Clever wives have figured out ways of tracking their husbands’ magical journeys.   
  
“Nobody was home,” Albus says. Scorpius isn’t sure why he’s mentioned this, regrets not saying hello and for God’s sake behaving like a normal person when Albus walked into the flat. He doesn’t know what’s gotten into him, but it’s driven Albus away like he was always afraid that anything unrestrained from him would.   
  
“On a weekend?” Teddy laughs. “Malfoy actually found something to do with himself?”  
  
“Seems like.”  
  
They ride for a while in silence. Albus plays with the radio, and Teddy tells him to knock it off, says he hates Muggle music.  
  
“What did you tell Clara?” Albus asks.  
  
“Business. An overnight conference.”  
  
“On a Sunday? That’s rich.”  
  
“She doesn’t need to believe me, she just needs me to say something.”  
  
“Does she know it’s me?”   
  
“Relax, for God’s sake. She’s not creative enough to suspect you. She thinks it’s a woman, I’m sure.”  
  
“You know what would happen to me if anyone found out.”  
  
“Did I say I’d been going around telling people? Yes, Albus, I know Mummy would cut you off if she found out you’d been screwing her adopted son. What do you want me to say? If you don’t want to risk it, don’t.”  
  
“It’s not about the money.”   
  
“It’s never about the money until somebody takes it away.”  
  
Scorpius feels dirtier and more excited than he did when he was watching Albus have sex. So this is what he does with Teddy. So this is what it’s like.  
  
He isn’t sure how long they’ve been driving before they reach their destination, doesn’t have the best concept of time when he’s in Animagus form. Albus reaches for his bag, and Scorpius makes sure to hide himself well when he feels it being lifted out of the backseat. From Teddy’s conversation with the porter and the sound of elevator bells, Scorpius guesses that Teddy has chosen a Muggle hotel, as usual. There is no way he and Albus could get away with anonymity at a wizarding establishment.  
  
“I’m going to take a shower,” Albus says when they reach their room. He drops his bag, an earthquake of disorientation rattling Scorpius when it meets the floor. Teddy grunts in disinterest, and Scorpius hears the clatter of bottles shaking together, the suction of a refrigerator door. He crawls up toward the small opening in the bag, wondering if he’ll be able to fit through. He might be able to, but he isn’t sure where Teddy is, doesn’t want to be squashed under his shoe if he’s seen. He can only imagine Albus’ reaction, coming out of the shower to find a flattened green lizard on the carpet. For a moment he enjoys the idea that this would make him sufficiently guilty for leaving, but it’s becoming clear that he hasn’t left at all, just gone for one of his nights away with Teddy.   
  
Perhaps I overreacted, Scorpius thinks, dry in his own mind when he can’t say so out loud. He wants to laugh like a lunatic, wants to remember what it was like to at least feel like he knew what he was doing with his life. But the last time he felt that might have been Hogsmeade, seventeen, Albus leading him out of the Three Broomsticks and into the woods near the town, ice cracking on the trees. Albus said he needed to talk to him about something, and kissed him hard as soon as they were out of sight. He shakes with the memory, wants to be a person again, to feel the warmth of skin, even if it’s his own.   
  
“Should we get dinner?” Albus says when he emerges from the shower.   
  
“It’s early.”  
  
“But I’m starved.”  
  
“Have a drink. Relax! What is wrong with you today?”  
  
“Nothing.” The bottles clatter again.  
  
“C’mere,” Teddy says. “I’ll rub your back.”  
  
Suddenly, the zipper is being pulled open. Scorpius burrows to the bottom of the bag as quickly as he can, terrified that Albus saw the last snatch of his tail.   
  
“What are you doing?” Teddy asks impatiently.  
  
“I was gonna put my underwear on.”  
  
“ _Why_?”  
  
“I thought we’d go to dinner—“  
  
“Albus, come _here_.”  
  
The bed springs squeak. Scorpius is huddled inside of the crotch of what, in fact, appears to be a pair of Albus’ underwear.   
  
“Honestly,” Teddy says, the springs squeaking again. “What’s gotten into you?”  
  
“What do you care?” Albus mutters. “Haven’t even seen you since Monday.” He sucks in a hiss. “Careful,” he says. “Not so hard on my shoulders.”  
  
“I’ve never felt you so tense,” Teddy says. “What have you been doing? Working out?” He laughs at the idea.   
  
“Fucking other blokes, actually.”  
  
Teddy scoffs. “As if that’s news to me. You know, people talk about you, Albus. You have to be careful – you’re still a celebrity.”  
  
“Still, really? Well, that’s a relief. As if I give a shit what people say.”  
  
“You might not, but think of your mother.”  
  
“Think of my mother? Were you thinking of her when you pulled me after the funeral?”  
  
“We’re back to that, are we?”  
  
“No – just – fuck it. Lower. Yeah, there. Harder – ah!”  
  
Scorpius sneaks up to the top of the bag. The zipper is halfway undone now, and when he dares a look at the bed, Albus and Teddy are both facing away from him, Albus on his stomach, Teddy straddling him, sitting on his arse while he rubs his back. Scorpius darts out of the bag and under the room’s other double bed. He peeks out from beneath its duster, watches Albus’ face, which is close to the edge of the bed he and Teddy are using. His eyes are shut, his face pinched up while Teddy kneads at his muscles. The noises he makes, starkly flickering between pain and pleasure, get Scorpius wondering if he’d still fit under the bed after transforming. He wants to have a wank, but can’t even feel the wanting properly in this form.   
  
“Tell me,” Teddy says, drawing his hands down to Albus’ bare arse. “Have these other blokes left you sore?”  
  
“You assume I’m always the one being fucked?”  
  
“Please.” Teddy smirks. “I know what you like.”  
  
Albus grins against the blankets, a small, secret thing, and Scorpius would wink up at him if he could, both of them thinking of yesterday, the coffee shop boy. Teddy doesn’t know everything. Scorpius doesn’t know why Albus doesn’t tell him so.  
  
“So have they?” Teddy asks. He pushes Albus’ legs apart, licks just the tip of one finger, rubs him teasingly.  
  
“Sometimes,” Albus says, his voice gone small, the words stuffed halfway back down his throat. Scorpius wonders if this is another game. It must be. He thinks of Albus at sixteen, his face cracked from crying, every room in his family’s home gone dark, and Teddy coming to him with a glass of hot milk. If only he had been there. They didn’t become friends until after Harry’s death, when Albus needed someone cynical to sit beside in silence for long hours in the farthest corners of the castle. If Harry Potter hadn’t died, the two of them might never have spoken.   
  
“Do they ever hurt you?” Teddy asks in a whisper. He hopes the answer will be yes, Scorpius can see it on his face. He wills Albus to hear it in his voice, but maybe he knows everything about Teddy that Scorpius does, and wants him more for it.   
  
“Do they hurt you, my poor little boy?” Teddy asks. He’s got one finger crooked inside Albus now, twisting in a practiced way. “Are you sore – here?” He sticks another finger in without warning, and Albus gasps, winces and goes stiff.  
  
“Yeah,” Albus says in a croak. “Yeah, Teddy, it – hurts.”  
  
“Are you all raw and sore, you poor thing?”  
  
“Yes – ah! – please –“  
  
“Tell me, tell me all about it.” Teddy pulls his fingers out of him, and Albus lets his breath out, blinks rapidly. “Go on,” Teddy says. He gets off the bed, crosses the room and fumbles around in Albus’ bag until he comes up with the jar of lubricant.   
  
“This one fella on Thursday,” Albus says. “Told me to come round to his place just before midnight. I’d had him before and it was good. I didn’t have any other plans. He had this other bloke with him, didn’t tell me about that, and I tried to leave, but then I didn’t want to be trying to leave, because I knew they wouldn’t let me. So I just stayed.”  
  
Teddy looks sincerely disturbed for a moment, standing in the middle of the room and holding the lube with both hands.   
  
“Is that true?” he asks.   
  
“Doesn’t matter. I guess you were in bed with Clara, listening to the news.”  
  
Teddy opens his mouth to continue, apologize, something, but then he switches off, twists the lid from the lube.   
  
“You poor thing,” he says, kneeling on the bed. He slicks his fingers, and inserts one, two, into Albus, more clumsily now. He’s hard, and Scorpius is relieved to see that his cock is not all that impressive.   
  
“Did they spread you wide for me?” he whispers behind Albus’ ear, and the cruelty of this flares so sharply through Scorpius that he starts to transform, has to concentrate very hard on remaining a lizard. Albus will hate him forever if he knows he’s come here to see this.   
  
“Did they stretch out that perfect, tight arsehole of mine?” Teddy asks. Albus is gurgling some nonresponse. There’s a mini bottle of vodka empty on the bedside table, glinting with orange light as the sun goes down. They’ve left the curtains open. Must be a high floor. Scorpius is reeling, trying to keep his hidden shape, making himself notice the bad artwork on the walls.   
  
“I suppose it was me who did that,” Teddy says. “The first. God, you were like heaven. Shaking and eager and holding onto me like –“  
  
“Fuck me if you’re gonna,” Albus says roughly, something else buried behind the words. “I’ve had enough of your goddamn fingers.”  
  
Teddy laughs, pets Albus’ hair.  
  
“That’s my bad little boy,” he says. “Never could turn down a cock.”  
  
When Albus lifts his arse and slides up onto his elbows, Scorpius ducks under the bed. He’s going to be sick, thinks this might kill him if he’s still a lizard. He runs across the room, no chance of them seeing him, and slips under the crack in the door, trips across the cheap hallway carpet as he transforms, falls onto his hands and knees. He Apparates before he’s even gotten his head clear, risking being splinched. But every part of him wants to be back in the flat in London so badly, he gets there in one piece.  
  
He immediately starts drinking. There is a bottle of firewhiskey, almost full, and half a bottle of gin. Albus must have recently restocked. Scorpius starts with the gin, drinks a glass with a single piece of ice floating in it. It tastes like something a house-elf would scrub toilets with, but that’s not the point. He pours himself another.   
  
The reason Albus drinks has never been unclear to Scorpius, and he stops himself from joining in only so that he can keep Albus from drowning in it entirely. He understands the desire to ruin his mind for a while, to put it aside. Drink in hand, he paces around the flat, laughing at himself in a weird choke, forgetting at moments that he’s not still small and green and watching someone else wreck his life. He starts sloshing gin all over the counter when he pours refills, and the remainder of the bottle is gone before long. He’s going to throw up if he doesn’t sit down, but even when he does, the room keeps moving around him. He puts his hands over his face, thinks of two blokes grinning, Albus fidgeting with the zipper on his jacket, trying to smile, the door behind him but gone. Teddy in dress robes, flattered that a sixteen-year-old would want to hold him tight on the worst day of his life.  
  
And then he’s just sobbing like an idiot. He can’t remember the last time he cried, and he’s certainly never fooled himself into thinking he has any business crying over Albus, though he once came close, after the kiss in Hogsmeade, when Albus told him about Roger Krump.   
  
He wakes up to the sound of a door slamming, shoots off the sofa expecting to find thugs sent by James Potter breaking into the flat. But it’s only Albus, standing inside the door like he doesn’t know how he got here.  
  
“What are you doing home?” Scorpius asks, half-asleep and confused, seeing this as though it’s a dream.   
  
“Sorry to intrude, but I think I actually live here,” Albus says. He glowers at Scorpius and goes into the kitchen, stops short when he sees the liquor bottles out on the counter.   
  
“I had some of your gin,” Scorpius says, slurring badly. “I’ll pay you back.”  
  
“Some of it?” Albus holds the bottle upside down, grins when only one drop falls out onto the kitchen floor. “Look at you, you’re completely knackered.” He’s ridiculously pleased by this, and Scorpius thinks he knows why. It’s a nice change of pace. He smiles wide, pleased that Albus is pleased.  
  
“Come here,” Scorpius says, standing with some effort, holding his arms out. Albus rushes to him much more quickly than he expected, holds onto him like there’s a stiff wind blowing and he might get swept away.  
  
“I had a row with Teddy,” he mumbles against Scorpius’ shoulder. He buries his face in tighter, exhales hotly.   
  
“You did?” Scorpius is so proud of him for making a fuss, for getting out of there. He rocks him back and forth slowly, puts his face against Albus’ temple, can’t believe the miracle of him.  
  
“Why are you drunk?” Albus asks, pulling back to look at him.   
  
“I never ask you,” Scorpius says, and Albus looks distraught for a moment.   
  
“Fair enough.”  
  
“I never ask you for anything,” Scorpius says, speaking into his mouth, already kissing him, because he’s here now and he can’t help it. Albus tastes like another kind of poison, stronger for coming into contact with his.   
  
Albus sighs and pulls back, looks like he wants to say something. Scorpius is afraid of what that might be, so he kisses him again, and Albus allows it, of course he does, opens his mouth and starts to guide Scorpius down toward the couch. But he doesn’t want the couch, so he backs into Albus’ room, brings the both of them to a tumbling crash onto his bed.   
  
They undress like they’ve got a time limit, Scorpius afraid to lose the moment, Albus going along with it like he always has. Scorpius takes Albus in his mouth as soon as he’s kicked his underwear away, and the shape of his cock, the solid weight against his tongue, is just familiar enough.   
  
“God, Scorpius,” Albus sounds like he might cry, and Scorpius never was sure if he was any good at this, hopes that Albus is being sincere, damned if he can ever tell, even sober. Albus pushes his hands through Scorpius’ hair, hums a low moan and bucks just a little, puts one foot over Scorpius’ on the floor.  
  
He holds onto Scorpius’ ears when he comes, which is almost enough to make him laugh, but he swallows every drop without cracking a smile. Albus falls into his lap like he’s been shot, kisses him hard enough to knock him backward onto to the bed. Scorpius feels boneless and free, not himself, not some goddamned animal, not in Albus’ pocket and barely in the room at all. It’s good, it’s necessary, it’s the only way this can be as free of consequences as he’s wanted.  
  
“Let me rub your back,” he says. Albus sits up, his mouth shining and swollen, bright eyes going dark.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Do you want a backrub?” Scorpius asks. He smiles sweetly. He can do this dark and dirty enough to write himself out of it, but he’ll still be kind, still be better.   
  
“Okay.” Albus grins slow, climbs off of him and flops onto his stomach, looks back over his shoulder. He reaches for Scorpius’ hand when he crawls to sit on his arse.  
  
“I’m so glad you were here,” he says as Scorpius starts on his neck, moving his thumbs in tight circles the way Teddy did.   
  
“So am I,” he says, though he doesn’t want to think about where he is, he doesn’t want to _think_. Albus is so warm between his legs, and when his eyes flutter shut, when he deflates like he’s been holding his breath for years, Scorpius wants it to just be Albus, just tonight, nothing to do with the ten years he’s wanted this, eight spent living together in separate bedrooms, five in this flat, three times inside Albus with nothing to show for it.  
  
He moves his hands down to the place Albus seemed to like best when it was Teddy doing this, presses his knuckles in hard. Albus almost squeaks, then curses and laughs.  
  
“That’s good,” he says. “Just be careful.”  
  
Scorpius has just finished half a bottle of gin, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that he’s not capable, right now, of being careful. Some far away alarm goes off in his mind, but he doesn’t want to think, refocuses his attention on Albus’ skin, slick against his legs.  
  
Albus rolls over and reaches for him hungrily, makes muffled noises against his neck. They grind their laps together like schoolboys, and Scorpius feels his mind move as water would in a clumsily carried bucket, fluid and unstable. He’s still got his trousers on, and flicks of reality spark through him when Albus reaches down to undo them: the color of these sheets, his sad wank upon them and the things he overheard in the Muggle hotel. He pushes all of it away, gets up on his knees and watches as Albus slides between his legs to mouth his cock through his underwear, as if he can't even wait the half second it will take to remove them.  
  
"You know what this reminds me of?" Albus asks suddenly, looking up at him.  
  
"What?" Scorpius is afraid the answer will involve Albus doing this with someone else.  
  
"That time on Christmas morning." Albus beams up at him. "Remember?"  
  
"Course I remember." It was the second time they had sex, maybe six years ago. Both of them had come to hate the Christmas holidays, the necessary family parties and the sentiment that was supposed to be reserved for Muggles which has bled its way into wizarding culture anyway. It was maybe seven o'clock in the morning. Albus showed up at his door, and Scorpius drew the blankets back without a word.  
  
"You smell the same," Albus says. He puts just the tip of his tongue against the head of Scorpius' cock, which is straining against white cotton that is going translucent, precome padding beneath the spot where Albus is flicking his tongue.   
  
"How do I smell?" he asks, determined not to go soft and cuddly like he did that second time they made love -- had sex. He would never recover from that again.   
  
"I dunno." Albus reaches for his trousers on the floor, finds his wand and points it at the seam of Scorpius' underwear. "You smell – good," he says before casting the spell that splits the seam open, tears them away.   
  
"That was a bit melodramatic," Scorpius says, tossing what remains of them away.   
  
"I feel melodramatic," Albus says. He takes Scorpius in his mouth, hands on his thighs, fingers just barely grasping his arse. Scorpius is drunk enough to languish in the heat of his mouth for a long time, until his legs begin to shake. Albus notices this and pulls back slowly, smiles and leans down onto the bed, hard again, waiting for instruction.  
  
"Can I fuck you?" Scorpius hears himself say. He really shouldn't be drunk right now, but perhaps it's the only way this was ever going to happen again. Albus laughs, which stabs at him, and he flips him around without waiting for a proper answer.  
  
"Wait," Albus says, reaching back, turning onto his side. "I want to be able to kiss you."  
  
Scorpius is struck speechless. He falls back into a sitting position and lets Albus crawl into his lap, arms loose around his shoulders. Albus finds his wand again and performs a lubricating spell, messy and usually a last resort, but perhaps he left all of his lube with Teddy at the hotel. Albus makes a face and flings the excess lubricant onto the carpet, then slicks what remains over Scorpius' cock.   
  
"Hey," Albus says. He takes Scorpius' chin in his hand, tips it until their eyes meet.   
  
"What?" Scorpius is afraid he'll change his mind at any moment. Maybe he's still sore from Teddy, from whatever. The thought makes him wince and look away.   
  
Albus doesn't say any more, just guides Scorpius into him, at a bit of an awkward angle. Scorpius can't really move, Albus locked down over his lap, tipped back a little. He cups his hands behind Albus' back and holds him while he begins to move, his breath fluttering already.   
  
"C'mere," Albus breathes, leaning forward with Scorpius still stuffed inside him, bending both their bodies uncomfortably so that he can kiss him. Scorpius makes an effort to thrust up into him, and Albus gasps into his mouth.  
  
"Are you sore?" Scorpius asks, and it's as if he's not here, not the one who just said that, did that. Albus leans back and watches his face for a moment, his mouth open around the first syllable of a question.   
  
"It's a funny angle," Scorpius says. "Do you want to--"  
  
"Yeah," Albus says, pulling off of him gracelessly, flipping over. Knees and elbows on the bed, forehead dipped against the sheet. "Go on," he says when Scorpius hesitates. "Fuck me if you're gonna."  
  
Scorpius recognizes the refrain. Has Albus said this to him before? The drunk buzzes hard against the pressure of some half-realization, and he takes hold of Albus' sides, hands shaking. Entering Albus from behind feels anticlimactic until he imagines that he's Teddy, here on Albus' bed where Scorpius has heard them on countless nights. He waits for Albus to make the sound he knows well from those evenings when he strained to hear it, but Albus is quiet, breathing hard against the mattress, digging his fingers into it.   
  
Scorpius feels dizzy and raw when he comes, as unprepared for the aftermath as ever, despite his guarded resolve and Albus' apparent distraction. He falls back onto the bed and watches Albus sink to this stomach, his muscles trembling from holding himself up, chin hanging off the end of the mattress like he's watching a telly across the room.   
  
"Hey," Scorpius says, reaching to palm his arse. Albus flinches.  
  
"You followed me."  
  
"What?" He's been caught, in this bed, after all.  
  
Albus sits up, still won't look at Scorpius. He pulls his legs over the side of the bed, lets his posture slump terribly.  
  
"Do I want a back rub?" he says harshly, snarling back over his shoulder, still not looking at Scorpius directly. "Am I sore? What are you -- you were -- I thought I saw you, in my bag. But then I thought." He laughs in a joyless hiccup. "I thought maybe I just wished you were there."  
  
"Wished I was --?"  
  
"Why would you do that to me?" Albus is dressing quickly, and Scorpius follows his lead. This is not the sort of argument that can be had naked. "What's wrong with you?"  
  
Scorpius is quiet for a moment. This is the end of things, anyway. He might as well be honest.  
  
"I just wanted this one thing," he says. "And you forbade it, despite the fact that you'll give any other bloke who looks at you twice whatever he wants. I've given you so much. So much more than you even know. And I never ask you for anything."  
  
"That's right you don't!" Albus shouts, furious, and Scorpius sits on the bed, confused.  
  
"I don’t – what do you mean?"  
  
"What do I mean? What do you _want_? What did you ever want from me, Scorpius? Why are you still here?"  
  
Albus is wearing only his shorts and a t-shirt, Scorpius only his trousers. They are two halves of a worthwhile thing. Even joined by their bodies, they have never really come together.  
  
"You know why I'm here,” Scorpius says.  
  
"I don't! I really don't."  
  
"Don't lie to me!" Now Scorpius stands, thinks there might be spells cast or punches thrown before this is done. "There's no way you don't know that I love you, Albus."  
  
"I know you love me, I'm not that fucking daft. I just--" He breaks off, pulls a hand through his hair. It's been a long time since he had it cut, Scorpius thinks absently, not wanting to get too close to what’s happening. This could be the last conversation they ever have. He will replay it in his mind forever, already feels years away from it, misses Albus terribly in advance.   
  
"I just don't know what good it does either of us,” Albus says. “And I don't know why, _fuck_ , I don't know why you can't -- just --"   
  
"Because,” Scorpius stops him before has to spell it out. “Because I can't fix you."  
  
Albus sits on the bed, facing away from him. He's so clearly wrecked, Scorpius doesn't know how he's stopped himself from flying to his side, muttering reassurances. But they seem to be standing in different rooms, watching each other from behind glass.  
  
"That's what we told ourselves about my father," Albus says. "'We can't fix him. We can't make the world more interesting without a villain to hunt. We can't take away the nightmares. We have to let him sort it out. He has to want to get better.' We let him sit in his office for days. We pretended to believe him when he smiled."  
  
"Albus, please. I'm sorry, I just. I don't know what you want me to do."  
  
"You don't know?" Albus turns and looks up at him, his face bleached with astonishment. "How -- how -- how can you not know?"  
  
"Because you've been impossible since we were seventeen!" Scorpius says, much louder than he intended. "It's like you've devoted your life to trying to drive me out of my mind! God, why did you ever even kiss me?"  
  
Two long seconds pass in silence. Scorpius is going to accuse Albus of being unable to remember when he speaks.  
  
"Because I'd fallen in love with you.” His voice is a tiny, harmless thing, and Scorpius feels monstrous, then only confused.   
  
"In -- but -- then why did you -- with Roger Krump --?"  
  
"I told you about Krump because -- I don't know. I was seventeen and stupid. I'd done a lot of things like that. I wanted -- I wanted you to forgive me, or at least get upset. But you just laughed like it was nothing. You already saw me like everyone else did."  
  
"You asked me if I wanted proof, if I wanted to watch --"  
  
"I didn't want you to say yes!" Albus bellows, standing again. He looks so completely wrung out that Scorpius expects to someday be arrested as an accomplice in the conspiracy to destroy him. Investigators will recreate this scene in the bedroom, they will collect hair samples, find him and know. This has been an grievous crime indeed. Ten years. He thanks every deity he knows that he's still quite drunk. He'd be irretrievable if he could fully get his mind around what's being said.  
  
"I thought you would hate me if I tried to stop you," he says. Albus seems close to falling over. He's not sure if he would trust himself to even try and catch him, to ever touch him again.  
  
"I think I hate you now because you didn't," Albus says, and then he does fall, toward the bed.  
  
Scorpius walks forward, grabs his arms before he can land against the sheets. He yanks him across the room and pins him to the wall beside the door. Albus makes a sound of wordless complaint, pinches his eyes shut as if he's afraid Scorpius will kill him.   
  
"Do you want to know what I've been meaning to tell you all these years, then? Since you hate me already? What I've been battering back since I was sixteen?"  
  
Albus doesn't respond, keeps his eyes shut, swallows hard.  
  
"I don't want you looking at anyone but me. I don't just mean lovers. Anytime you give your attention to anyone else, I can't stand it. I don't want you smiling, touching, fucking anyone but me, I don't want you to laugh at other people's jokes, eat their cooking, share remarks about the weather. I lost my mind over you a long time ago. I came here and built my life around you pointlessly, didn't ask for anything in return, but now I'm asking, I'm telling you, you're mine, and I'll kill anyone who gets near you, who hurts you, who thinks they could possibly want you as much as I do."  
  
He lifts Albus off the ground, which is difficult, because he's crying with his whole body, not weeping but just shaking with a kind of grief that feels almost glorious. Albus is biting away his own tears, and he kisses Scorpius hard as he’s crushed against the wall, wraps his legs around his back. Scorpius feels instantly like he's never done this before, not with Albus or anyone, and he hasn't, this is new. They have finally stripped each other bare, and there is no shake in their lips, nothing but certainty like a rainfall.  
  
They breathe onto each other, eyes locked, Scorpius still holding Albus in a bruising grip. He doesn't know how he can possibly follow that. So much depends on what happens next.   
  
"I don't think I want to live in London anymore," Albus says, timid, like he's divulging another secret. Two minutes ago, Scorpius would have taken this for goodbye.  
  
"Okay," he says. "Me either."  
  
There is a charge of nervous energy still in the room that makes them consider leaving straight away, but less than ten minutes later Scorpius is getting sick with his head bent into the toilet, so the travel plans are postponed. Albus sits behind him and pats his back, tries not to laugh, can't resist mentioning how the tables have turned.   
  
"Stuff it, Potter," Scorpius says, wiping his forehead.   
  
"Here." Albus pulls him back when he's finished, helps him stand. They go to Scorpius' room, where the bed is clean and cool. Albus watches him stretch out, moaning as his stomach continues to gurgle.   
  
"Never drinking gin again," he mumbles absently. Albus sits beside him and pats his forehead with a damp cloth.   
  
"Me either," he says. Scorpius cracks his eyes open, surprised. Albus grins. "It's firewhiskey from here on out."  
  
The bottle of firewhiskey is one of the few things they take with them when they go, leaving the rest of it behind like accursed artifacts. They stop at Ginny's house on the way out of town, and Scorpius comes through her door in human form for the first time in years. She embraces both of them, still in her nightgown at ten o'clock in the morning on a Monday, and presses a cheque into Albus' hand before he can even ask. She holds Albus' face for a long time before he leaves, then smiles, lets him go. There is no doubt that she knows he'll never be back.  
  
They take a Muggle ship across the Atlantic Ocean, no final destination in mind. For two weeks they spend their nights tangled together in a tiny bunker, whispering to each other in the dark like they might be caught by a prefect. Scorpius wants Albus inside him all the time, interrupts conversations to ask for it. In the afternoons they pace the deck of the ship, lean together on the railing and huddle against the cold and discreetly cast warming charms on each other’s cloaks. Albus looks good with color in his cheeks, but Scorpius burns easily, has Albus rub skin soothing potion across the bridge of his nose before dinner.  
  
Scorpius writes to his parents when they settle in southern Maine, in the tiny town of Kittery, populated mostly by wizards since sometime in the 1800's. They use the money Ginny gave Albus to buy a wreck of a house, two stories, near the coast, with overgrown flowerbeds. Albus fixes it up with magic while Scorpius searches for work. He becomes a research assistant for a Japanese witch who is studying North American mermaids, and spends most of his afternoons sitting on beaches, surrounded by bottled scales and other specimens the mermaids have shed, drawing sketches for the book the witch is writing. She says he's got a talent for it, and he doesn't really believe her, but appreciates the encouragement.  
  
Lily comes to visit them during her winter break. She teases Albus for the pride he takes in the house, tells him he's turned into their grandmother.   
  
"Not so!" Albus says. "Scorpius does all the cooking."  
  
Albus drinks too much, and Scorpius fluctuates between giving him hell for it and doing the same. Albus takes what Scorpius said in a moment of passion and semi-drunkenness much too seriously, and keeps to himself in both the magical and the Muggle community, won't even go on a double date with Scorpius' boss and her husband. Scorpius corners him in his vegetable garden one afternoon, tells him he can stop being a recluse whenever he wants.  
  
"Nah," Albus says. "I think I've had my fill."  
  
"Of what?"  
  
"People."  
  
"Brilliant, what does that make me?"  
  
Albus looks up at him, dirt smeared on his cheek, smirks.  
  
"Some reptile I picked up at Hogwarts. Kissed him, turned into a price. You know the rest."  
  
In the summer, it rains for weeks at a time. Albus makes Scorpius listen to at least one Quidditch game a night, drinking ale after ale and getting worked up over bad calls. When the games end, Scorpius slinks out to the screened in porch to watch the rain, the ocean rocking indifferently beneath it. Albus follows him out after the post-game comments, curls into the over-stuffed blue armchair they keep on the porch and leans back onto Scorpius, who holds him against his chest.   
  
"Do you think I'd be dead if it weren't for you?" Scorpius asks him one night when they're both close to nodding off, the rain pattering the roof steadily.   
  
"If it weren't for _me_?" Albus laughs at the idea.  
  
"Cause I think I might be."  
  
Albus sniffs in sleepy appreciation, turns back to kiss Scorpius' jaw.  
  
"Then I suppose I've done my Potterly duty. Saved someone."  
  
"I suppose you have."  
  
Scorpius rarely transforms anymore, and sometimes he feels homesick for the weightless scamper of his Animagus form, but mostly he doesn't miss being carried around in Albus' pocket. He reaches for him when he wants to, folds him into his arms when he wakes from a nightmare, takes the piss out of him when he's being a prat. It's not the same as being feather-light and hidden, a secret heart beating alongside Albus’ inside his shirt, but it's better to live outside the safety of Albus' robes, where he can look him straight in the eye, tell him what he's thinking without only wishing that he could, and know in every room of their house that Albus wants him here, always has, full stop.


End file.
